50jili cc
Two Irish EuroMillions players scoop €1m each in raffle, with one Wexford player winning €500K
Author's Tranquility Press Presents: The Alien Apocalypse by Frank Morin
The Golden State Valkyries will be selecting Kate Martin and Kayla Thornton in the 2025 WNBA expansion draft , a source briefed on the decision told The Athletic . The full results of the draft will be announced Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Per the rules outlined by the league and the collective bargaining agreement for the expansion draft, the 12 current WNBA franchises are allowed to protect six players. The Valkyries are then able to choose one unprotected player from each team; that can be a player on the active roster, a player who the organization has draft rights to, or is on their international rights list. Advertisement Martin will arguably be the most popular player taken by Golden State Friday. The 2024 rookie out of Iowa, where she helped Caitlin Clark lead the Hawkeyes to two consecutive trips to the national title game, had a strong start to her first WNBA season. As the Las Vegas Aces dealt with the absence of Chelsea Gray , Martin averaged 19.3 minutes over her first ten games and made 37 percent of her 3-pointers. However, Martin saw less court time as the Aces returned to full health, cracking double-digit minutes only twice in the second half of the season. Her postseason minutes consisted of one appearance in a blowout. Las Vegas was always going to protect its core four of A’ja Wilson , Kelsey Plum , Jackie Young , and Gray in the draft, but Martin could have been one of the final two players. Instead, Martin will start the second chapter of her WNBA career with the Valkyries, and the expansion team will benefit from the three remaining cost-controlled seasons on her rookie deal. The New York Liberty had to make some of the toughest decisions league-wide thanks to the depth of their roster. The reigning champions had to prioritize their full starting lineup and Nyara Sabally , who was the X-factor in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals. That left their entire international list — including Marine Johannès and Han Xu — exposed, as well as critical bench players. Golden State is electing to take one of those veteran reserves in Kayla Thornton, a player who general manager Ohemaa Nyanin is intimately familiar with, as Nyanin was the assistant GM in New York prior to joining the Valkyries. Thornton appeared in every playoff game for the Liberty during their title run, averaging the second-most minutes (12.5) among bench players. Her best peformance of the postseason came in Game 2 of the semifinals against Las Vegas, when she was a game-best plus-13 and helped New York take a commanding 2-0 lead in the series. Golden State will be the fourth stop in Thornton’s WNBA career, and the 32-year-old veteran has one year remaining on a contract extension she signed with the Liberty in 2023. Required reading (Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Biden on Jimmy Carter: ‘I think he’s happy with Rosalynn’
AR Fitness and Nutrition opens in Pearland
An Ontario city is lowering the fees it charges developers to build new housing “dramatically,” in a move local and provincial politicians hope will help to boost the number of homes built. Vaughan, located directly north of Toronto, announced the move this week, lowering development charges for all new homes back to their 2018 rates — and keeping them at that rate for at least the next five years. The move means developers will pay the city less to build. Homebuilders have long asked for a reduction in the fees they pay, claiming the charges levelled by municipalities to pay for infrastructure and local amenities are prohibitively high. Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca appears to agree. “Development charges have become an unfair tax burden on homebuyers,” he said in a statement announcing the development charge drop. “Too many of our residents, in particular young families in our community, have seen their dream of buying a home close to where they grew up disappear completely as housing prices have spiraled out of control. We have a housing affordability crisis and it’s time for us to get real about the solutions needed to solve it.” The move was praised by the Building Industry and Land Development Association, a developer lobby group, which has been calling for an overhaul of the fees its members pay. “This will enhance the financial viability of future projects, unlocking potential investment and stimulating supply,” BILD president Dave Wilkes said in a statement. The fee drop for builders comes as towns and cities province-wide struggle to get housing projects off the ground, leaving the Ford government’s plan to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031 in danger of failure. Recently, the Financial Accountability Officer of Ontario found housing starts were down 17 per cent year-on-year over the summer, with development of single-family homes heading for a 69-year low. That followed equally disappointing projections in the government’s Fall Economic Statement predicting the province would fail its annual housing goals every year until at least 2027. Ontario Housing Minister Paul Calandra told Global News Vaughan was making the right decision by cutting development charges. “It’s a really great first step for Vaughan, it had some of the highest – if not the highest — DCs in the country,” he said. “They will start to see the fruits of this — it will start to pay off for them.” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, whose party recently unveiled its vision of a new deal for municipalities, said the decision to cut development charges had been brought on by provincial neglect. “We hear from developers certainly that development charges remain a concern,” she said. “I think cities are trying to come up with solutions to get building happening and what’s missing here is the province. The province is not at the table with solutions and housing starts are down... we’ve never seen anything like this.”
- Previous: 50jili tv
- Next:
